Tackling Islamic State’s terror in Syria is fraught with peril

While Obama has been criticised for not having a strategy, his desire to build a coalition could prove to be the best policy, writes Jim Gaines.

IN HER recently published memoir Hard Choices, former US senator Hillary Clinton recounts the meeting, nine days after the election of 2008, when US president-elect Barack Obama first asked her to be secretary of state.

He “presented a well-considered argument,” she writes, “explaining that he would have to concentrate most of his time and attention on the economic crisis and needed someone of stature to represent him abroad”.